CRAB Shares Position on Riverbank Redesign

Letter from Carl Zimba
President, Charles River Alliance of Boaters

The I-90 Allston Multimodal Project involves rerouting of I-90 through Allston by straightening the curve, making it safer, while replacing the decaying viaduct.  The community has spoken in a unified voice that they would prefer an at-grade option, placing I-90, Soldiers Field Road, 4 railroad tracks, and an improved Paul Dudley White pathway side by side rather than rebuilding the viaduct. 

Over the past several years, it has been difficult to develop a design that squeezes all that within the Throat, a narrow slice of land bounded by BU and the river between the BU Bridge and the River Street Bridge.  The current design proposed by MassDOT keeps the roadways and railroad tracks on land and envisions the PDW as a boardwalk deck on pilings in the river along the Boston shoreline.  

CRAB has strongly voiced concerns about this design and continues to feel that the current design needs to be improved.  

Shoreline Treatment

The current shoreline is a mess, a jumble of jagged rocks and concrete, storm water drains, shrubbery, fallen trees, and trash.  This is an opportunity to clean this up.  During the last meeting of the I-90 Task Force, MassDOT presented four alternatives for the shoreline treatment [ slides 38-47]. Two of these proposed treatments involve granite walls while one involves a steel curtain wall. 

During the meeting, Kane Larin, our representative on the Task Force, clearly stated CRAB’s opposition to any additional walls along the shoreline. We prefer a gently sloping contour that allows waves and wakes to be dissipated and egress for any capsized boaters.  We further prefer that any combined sewage overflows be eliminated and that stormwater runoff be filtered to remove trash, oils, and phosphorus before entering the river.  

Paul Dudley White Pathway

The current conceptual design of the PDW in the Throat is a boardwalk deck supported by 280 pilings in the river.  While CRAB has expressed concern about this concept, we have also tried to work with MassDOT to improve it.  We have proposed sponsoring a design charrette to generate better concepts for both the shoreline and the PDW.  This meeting is an initial step in that process. This past summer, in cooperation with MassDOT, we placed a line of buoys in the river to outline the position of the PDW in the current conceptual design in order to gauge how this intrusion into the river might impact our activity. As you might imagine with a community as large as CRAB, there was a spectrum of responses.While most of our community felt that we could live with the pathway extending out into the river 30-40 feet in the Throat, there was also a significant number of people that were opposed to any encroachment into the river. This is consistent with our position since 2018 on the pathway:  We would like to see an improved PDW.  It might include some use of the water sheet.  There is a limit to how far the PDW could extend into the river.   Like the community at large, there are many people in the boating community that would benefit from an improved PDW.  But there needs to be a balance between the impact of the new PDW on our activities on the water and the other needs of the community at large.  

CRAB continues to have concerns about the deck-on-pilings concept:   

Boating Safety:  Building a boardwalk a few feet above the water sheet presents a significant risk of head and upper torso injury to rowers.  While experienced rowers may minimize this risk, it only takes a moment of inattention to collide with such a structure.  This is an unacceptable risk.  The proposed boardwalk is also a barrier to anyone who may capsize in the river by walling off a long section of the shoreline.  

Water Movement:  The use of hundreds of pilings to support the PDW will lead to reduced water movement and increased sedimentation.  As we have documented in our detailed depth chart, sedimentation in the river over the last century is a growing problem.  We don’t need to add to it.  

Water Quality:  While the I-90 project must not have a negative impact on the ecology of the river, especially in terms of water quality, this is an opportunity to eliminate combined sewage overflows and improve the treatment of stormwater runoff. 

Trash Accumulation:  The boardwalk on pilings will trap trash behind it much like the Memorial Drive causeway near the Longfellow Bridge.  Moreover, the Charles River Cleanup Boat will not be able to remove such trash as they do today.  

Winter Maintenance:  During winter months, an elevated pathway over the water will require significant application of de-icers that will result in more salt entering the river, negatively affecting water quality.   Future Maintenance: Compared to a pathway situated on land, a boardwalk over the water will likely require more maintenance and the track record of the Commonwealth on this is not encouraging.  

Reduction of Traffic Lanes:  Recently, there have been renewed calls to consider reducing the number of traffic lanes from 12, 4 for Soldiers Field Road and 8 for I-90.  Eliminating even a single lane could allow the PDW to be built on land and not into the river.  

The meeting this Wednesday is an opportunity to learn what the latest design concepts are from MassDOT and to express your approval and concern about such design concepts. You may agree or disagree with the issues that CRAB has identified or may have additional issues not discussed in this note.   I encourage you to attend the meeting, listen attentively, and express your views politely.  If we want to alter the current design of the I-90 Project, we need to do so through persuasion, not confrontation.